Sean Kelly has joined the chorus of commentators and riders wondering out loud what Wout van Aert was doing during yesterday's stage 6 on the Tour de France. The Jumbo Visma rider, and then race leader, attacked hard multiple times before getting clear in a three-man group with about 150km remaining.
Jakob Fuglsang (Israel Premier Tech) decided he had had enough with 65kn to go and dropped back from the small breakaway to rejoin the bunch. However, Van Aert and Quinn Simmons (Trek Segafredo) persisted, though their maximum gap of over four minutes had been cut to two minutes with 50km to go.
Some 20km further down the road, Van Aert rode Simmons off this wheel - the young American later saying trying to sit behind the yellow jersey was like a pacing session behind his father's motorbike.
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Van Aert then continued to persist out front alone, being caught with 11km to go and then going straight out the back of the reduced peloton. He lost his yellow jersey and also gave up his chance of a stage win.
The tactics clearly baffled Sean Kelly, who is working on the Tour de France as a commentator for GCN-Eurosport.
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"It was crazy riding yesterday from Van Aert. And I'm still trying to…. Why did he do that?" Kelly said. "I know the race was very active in the earlier part and that's where you have to be at the front.
"And when there was groups going away there, 10 maybe 20 riders… if you have a free hand from the team and they say 'this is your day, you can do what you like' I would have followed and not attacked.
"And (Van Aert) was attacking at the beginning and really pushing on the pace. And he's the style of rider that when the move goes and he sees five, seven riders (going clear) and there's some danger guys in it; bang, out of the saddle on the wheel of the riders that are going and you just continue on doing that."
Kelly said there was a huge difference in how draining it was to try and get away in a group by following other attacks compared to initiating multiple moves yourself, as Van Aert had done.
"When you attack from the front of the peloton, that takes so much more effort to do that and you are going to pay for that effort as you go further into the day. And then you ride away with two other riders, with three riders out the front you immediately say 'well, this is going to be a real killer of a day'.
"I would certainly not have done the attacking that Wout van Aert did yesterday. I would have waited and see what happens in the final. A stage victory was a possibility for him on that run to the finish. So I'm still puzzled about the tactics of Wout van Aert if it was the case that the team said 'you have a free hand to do what you want to do today'."
